Melania Trump Launches MEME Coin MELANIA, Market Cap Once Surged Above $13 Billion, The Solana Network Was Congested and Even Outaged

After Trump personally launched the MEME coin TRUMP, causing an unprecedented frenzy both inside and outside the crypto community, his wife Melania has also introduced her own official token, MELANIA.

Trump's wife launches official token 'MELANIA' after TRUMP token sparks FOMO

Author: Nancy, PANews

After Trump personally launched the MEME coin TRUMP, causing an unprecedented frenzy both inside and outside the crypto community, his wife Melania has also introduced her own official token, MELANIA. Under the "First Lady" effect combined with the FOMO sentiment surrounding the TRUMP token, MELANIA's market cap was once pushed above $13 billion, leading to congestion and even outages on the Solana network due to the surge in trading volume. However, this wave of funding driven by FOMO has also caused significant bloodletting in the crypto market, with several details surrounding the issuance of MELANIA triggering market controversy.

In the early hours of January 20, Melania Trump announced on social media that people can now purchase the MEME coin MELANIA. Subsequently, Trump retweeted to further confirm this information, quickly igniting the market.

TRUMP falls sharply, crypto market suffers severe bloodletting

Stimulated by the wealth effect brought by Trump's token TRUMP, MELANIA quickly seized a large amount of market liquidity within just a few hours. According to DEX Screener data, MELANIA's market cap exceeded $13.09 billion just hours after its launch, with a cumulative trading volume reaching $1.36 billion.

Under MELANIA's bloodsucking attack, the crypto market generally fell as funds were rapidly withdrawn, with particularly severe bloodletting on-chain, and TRUMP was no exception, briefly dropping below $40.

According to SoSoValue data, the crypto market sector generally retraced, with the AI Agents sector down 12.08%, the PayFi sector down 6.75%, the DeFi sector down 6.94%, and the MEME sector down 7.53%.

Coinglass data shows that in the past 12 hours, the entire crypto market saw over $710 million in liquidations, with long positions liquidating $590 million and short positions liquidating $120 million. The cryptocurrencies with the highest liquidation amounts were Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and TRUMP. GMGN data indicates that TRUMP's maximum drop today reached 59.6%.

While MELANIA was being speculated upon in the market, the original intention of the token's creation, the unlocking mechanism, and the series of token issuances by the Trump family have also sparked considerable speculation and controversy.

On one hand, MELANIA's deployment time has been criticized as being too rushed. According to Abstract contributor cygaar, MELANIA's official website and domain were created just yesterday (January 19), and the front-end code is incomplete. In contrast, the deployment of the TRUMP token began preparations as early as December 2024;

On the other hand, according to information from the MELANIA official website, the token distribution plan allocates 35% to team shares, 20% to the treasury, 20% to the community, 15% to public issuance, and 10% for liquidity. MELANIA has a significant difference in unlocking mechanisms compared to TRUMP, with the MELANIA team's token share having an initial lock-up period of only 30 days, while the TRUMP token's team share requires a lock-up of 3 years. Meanwhile, on-chain analyst Yu Jin pointed out that the figures regarding the team's unlocking portion in MELANIA's token distribution appear to be incorrect. According to the official token distribution, the team allocation is 35%, but the unlocking rules indicate it is calculated at 30%. Moreover, only 35% of the team's allocation has written unlocking rules, while the rest is not specified, which may imply that MELANIA's circulation could be 65%.

Regarding the series of token issuances by Trump and his family, Zack Guzmán, founder of crypto media Coinage, analyzed in a post that the Trump family quickly launched the TRUMP and ELANIA coins before the inauguration to potentially avoid constitutional risks. According to the U.S. Constitution's compensation clause, the president cannot receive private benefits from foreign governments. Trump previously earned about $7.2 million through an NFT project, and his wife Melania also made over $330,000 from NFT sales. Issuing tokens before officially taking office could reduce the risk of being accused of violating the compensation clause.

Ryan Selkis, founder of Messari, publicly called on Trump regarding the launch of MELANIA, suggesting he fire the individuals who recommended initiating the Melania project today. He pointed out the following issues: the project team lacks professional capability; it could cause significant economic losses and damage to reputation; project decisions did not adequately consider Trump's interests.

"Meme coins are a zero-sum